One of the objectives of the Foundation Coalition is to bring the core competencies into all aspects of the engineering curricula. At Texas A&M University it became apparent that the students were not understanding connections between all of the engineering science courses, and were often undervaluing the courses that they did not perceive to be 'in their major.' Texas A&M had already piloted an Engineering Science Core Program under a curriculum and course development grant from NSF. (Interested readers may want to read about the evolution of the sophomore program.) Then, in November 1994 a team of faculty members from engineering, mathematics, physics, and English started meeting to review and reform the courses that engineering sophomores take. The team used the following guidelines in developing a set of sophomore courses for engineering majors:

1. the Sophomore Courses must build on the freshman coalition year;the Sophomore program must be for all engineering majors;
2. the approach would be based on the conservation and system accounting principles; developed in the NSF Engineering Science Core Program;
3. the program should integrate across the courses;
4. the courses must involve teaming and active learning;
5. the courses must involve technology in the classroom learning environment;
6. and the courses must be teachable by a large set of faculty

The faculty team developed a sophomore year curriculum that integrated mechanics, thermodynamics, materials, electric circuits and systems, and some heat transfer, fluids, and strength of materials, as well as Physics, Calculus III, Differential Equations, and technical writing. Readers can find more detailed information in the oaper, "Development of a Sophomore Year Engineering Program at Texas A&M University" by Richard Griffin, Louis Everett, and Dimitris

Resources
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology

References for Further Information

1. Gagne, R .M., L.J. Bridges, and W. W. Wagne. 1998. Principles of Instructional Design. Orlando, FL: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
2. Hanson, G., and B. Price. 1992. Academic Program Review. In: M. A. Wjitley, J. D. Porter, and R. H. Fenske (eds.). The Primer for Institutional Research. Tallahassee: Association for Institutional Research.
3. Satterly, D. 1989. Assessment in schools. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell Ltd.